In the Company of Hags

Do I seem different today? Wiser, more mature? Have I assumed a mantle of gravitas?

I didn't think so.

Midweek birthdays are inconvenient. Not so much for us welfare queens, but for the rest of you workaday drudges with your tiresome schedules and commitments. So we invited some friends over on Saturday evening, a plan that satisfied almost everyone.

Everyone except for my college pal Caroline, who lives in North Carolina and couldn't make it this weekend. She began hailing the arrival of my 40th a couple of weeks ago with a cheerfully grim countdown: "Only 12 days till you're an old hag," "You're gonna be an old hag on Thursday," etc. She should know; she's been one for 10 months now.

Since the Saturday get-together wasn't possible, she mused, "What are you doing on your actual birthday? Maybe I'll jump on a plane." Caroline is one of those rare people whose maybes tend to become reality, so I wasn't surprised when she announced a few hours later that she'd bought a ticket. She doesn't like to fly, but her desire to be on hand for my initiation into haghood was far stronger. And Dan couldn't stand the idea of us having fun without him, so he took the day off work. By Caroline's standard, Dan's been a hag for almost three years already, so it was a vanload o' crones. (I believe that's actually the scientific plural.)

With three young boys, Caroline is a professional celebratrix. Hence the huge psychedelic hat she was wearing when we picked her up at the airport. It was shaped like a birthday cake, complete with candles. She said she'd worn it on the plane, and I didn't doubt her for a second.

The confection was transferred to my head, and Caroline produced two slightly less elaborate ones for herself and Dan. In honor of my new status as a hag, I'd worn my lesbian pantsuit and loafers, accented with a strand of Mardi Gras beads; the hat went quite well.

As we headed off to Baltimore, Caroline remarked how long it had been since she'd been in a car without kids. "I feel like such a grownup," she said, the floppy candles bobbing on her cake hat.

After a hearty lunch at a piss-elegant restaurant in Little Italy, we proceeded to the real attraction: the Visionary Art Museum. It's one of my favorite galleries, and I knew Caroline, with her Condi-with-a-dildo sense of aesthetic discernment, would appreciate it.

Which she did -- to the point of missing her flight home. No worries; she caught the next one.

Thus was my induction into haghood both enjoyable and memorable, celebrated with copious hooting and howling -- as it should be. Good times.

P.S.: The pictures posted yesterday (which I found through Google image searches for desert, desolate, and moonscape) were brought to you by the number 40.